What does this mean?We require you to be In Character at any point that you are in the IC game world and we actively enforce this. Though to be honest, because our players have grown in that environment, and the tutorial is pretty explict about our stance regarding this it is rare that we ever have to.

We do have OOC channels, and we have found that they help to foster a warm welcoming and helpful community of players. Also because of our code base and unique setting, we find that the newbie channel is very necessary for asking and answering questions. However, there are strict rules in place stating that only OOC conversations can happen on these out of character channels. And again, we actively enforce this.

What do we do to help with this?
Where possible we avoid numbers to describe things but rather use meaningful word values. So instead of 20% health, you might see 'injured'. Instead of 40 strength, you might see 'gifted' strength.

We have a fairly unique and detailed world. We provide a short summary of the main information you need to play on the website and plan on providing more detail on the wiki.

We provide a number of commands to help with the development of your characters ICly, and our code base is focused on this.

Roleplay Features:

Emotes:

Emotes incorporates languages in between the quote marks and translates it appropriately depending on both the speakers and listeners skill.

You can target both objects and people in emotes using keywords and the code will convert it into the relevant short description. A simple example: ~self sits atop the @stool. Might become: A youthful tir sits atop the three legged stool.

You can recognise someone by a name, or nickname and use this to target in emotes, and have the descriptions replaced by this name or nickname.

You can start the emote with something other than your character's name/description as long as you use their name elsewhere in the emote. A simple example: Closing the door behind her, ~self enters the tavern and brushes her boots over the wicker mat.

Poses:

You can set a characters pose in the room. This describes briefly what they are doing for those that enter, or are watching from nearby.

You can also set poses on objects in the room or your inventory to further clarify how something is being held, or where something is located.

Thinks:

Sometimes your actions in emotes might contradict what your character is actually thinking. For example, your character might be smiling at that Skrel'eth woman over at the bar, but inwardly thinking she is a bitch and planning her demise.

Thinks are both used for character development and to give staff an insight into the character for plots. Their use is strongly encouraged.

A small number of characters are psychic and may pick up on some thinks.

Prays:

This is a way to communicate with the Gods. More often than not prays will not get a response, but for those that play priests, it is a particularly useful character communication command.

The above is just a small sample of the many commands and features we have in place to provide support for your story telling and character development. And we have a lot more in the works! If this is something you're after, then I welcome you to try out Dark Isles: Website: Dark Isles - Original, Intensive Roleplaying Mud (RPI) Telnet: dark-isles.com 8000

Sometimes your actions in emotes might contradict what your character is actually thinking. For example, your character might be smiling at that Skrel'eth woman over at the bar, but inwardly thinking she is a bitch and planning her demise.

Thinks are both used for character development and to give staff an insight into the character for plots. Their use is strongly encouraged.

A small number of characters are psychic and may pick up on some thinks.

The above gave me a bit of pause. If "thinks" give an insight to staff, that means that staff must get to see them. When? All the time? Only when there is a staff member in the room?

The above gave me a bit of pause. If "thinks" give an insight to staff, that means that staff must get to see them. When? All the time? Only when there is a staff member in the room?

Staff have a log channel for thinks that they can turn on and off. So, they can choose to watch them or not. The use of the think command is optional but our players tend to like to use it quite often to flesh out their character and enjoy the role-play that can result from it.

After an excursion made by the honorable Aanson Doraster, and fellow companions, the Western Forest has been for the most part cleansed of the demon scourge. It is now safe to travel there, although the ocassional grotesque monster can be sighted.

A quality code for items has been implemented. Get some good tools, have some descent knowledge on how to craft, and you're golden! Also, this means that if you have a crappy sword, you're probably not going to fair very well in battle. Rejoice for realism, my friends!

Magic is for the most part, fully-implemented. However, the bugs still need to be worked out.

The Rangers are a lively little organization again, and probably hiring, so there's a goal for you new players if you were looking for one.

-----

So, come to the the haven for roleplay without the mandatory swordplay. (But you -can- :P)
Dark Isles!
*link in first post*

The Honorable Reformed Pirate Captain, Trygon Avoura, has formed a group of men dubbed the Crimson Sky. With a mission statement of justice, they are hiring on criminals who want to turn over a new leaf and citizens of Seahaven who want to help their city with their martial skill.

After assaulting and evading the Captain of the Watch, the heretic Samuein ap Alavon has been announced wanted by the Seahaven Watch and enemy of the Six just gods. May Cymur's light find and remove this new found blemish upon the city.

Not to mention the ever developing stories which twist the city in webs of intrigue and controversy, a number of new coding updates have been implemented. Amongst them, a more refined message system - a number of balances to skills - and a few new skills for the special races.

A lot of work has been done lately concerning the magic system, and how spells will be represented and even made, on Dark Isles. It all is pretty cool stuff, and I personally can't wait to see it implemented and used. There's a lot of variety for spells for both good-doers and evil-doers, and I'm very impressed with what the staff have done so far with the system.

A direct quote from one of the staffer's blogs, talking about the features, and a few changes that the staff have decided upon to how it all works...

Quote:

1. Orb prospecting
Remains pretty much the same, you search around, and it works like a compass to locate the nearest kha source.

2. Orb harvesting
Remains pretty much the same, you spend a little time and if you’re lucky you get a nice shiny orb.

3. Absorbing the Orbs
This is where the changes start to become apparent. Orbs now deteriorate . Fast. They last, at most, about 10 minutes. They no longer hold spells, but rather simply have kha that can be absorbed. New command: absorb . This will absorb the kha into your body, and the kha types are separate. So you might have 200/350 Fyros kha and 0/350 Aeros kha. How much you absorb is dependent upon your skill at absorbing.

4. Learning Spells
We’re going back a bit old school on this and make them learnable via 3 (possibly more in the future) methods. The first, for the most common spells, via books and library research. The second, will only be available in specific books, allowing guilds to have ‘guild spells’. And lastly, spells will be able to be taught from person to person.

5. Casting
More old school stuff. It’ll likely be the format you’re probably used to on a lot of muds: cast ‘[spell name]‘ [victim] [location] [intensity]. Though victim, location and intensity would be optional.

6. Solidifying Crystals
This will be a very high level skill that will enable a mage to take a kha orb, and solidify it into a crystal that can be stored and absorbed at a later time.

At the moment, steps 1, 2 and 3 are complete and I’m working on step 5. We have a web-based spell addition form so that any staff member can easily add lots of new spells, and they have the ability to highly customizable… right down to making RP only spells with no in game code effect. So a spell could create a flower out of thin air and tuck it behind the ear of the ‘victim’, or you could drain a Vek of their blood… there’s a lot of flexibility.

So if playing a regular citizen, a noble, a blood-drinking Vek, a savage and sometimes tribal Wolfkin, or a mind-reading Dryth wasn't enough for you, now you'll soon be able to be a channeler (mage).

Aside from changes to the magic system, Dark Isles also saw a new area open up. With sea-travel now opening up, people can now make the voyage to Perran, one of the only established Tirrish towns - though a lot of Skrel will be found there as well.

If you've any questions about the world, feel free to log in and ask around or take a peak at the website and wiki. Bear with us, the game is still under development, and the wiki might not have as much information as might be desired, but it's certainly enough to bite your teeth into.